Amishi Seth - The Goofies Tear Down the House

“Certainly the author pushes all the right buttons in her slapstick world of mayhem – perhaps with an eye on an eventual action cartoon for children.”

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

This is the second book in the Goofies series continuing the story of family that is always in a mad whirl. Amishi Seth rushes them through breakfast, house repair and a whole host of other things which have results so disastrous that destructive eight year olds are bound to find them funny. At one level the book seems to have a foothold on real life with office, laptops and presentations thrown in, at another it escalates to extraterrestrial heights with a terrified alien sent to Earth by King ET on a quest for adventure.

There is also a group of dysfunctional bandits to match the Goofies led by Boss with Popper whose eyeballs pop out as an added special character effect. Shopkeepers have rather allegorical names like Slimy and Buttery which may be unfair to the character of the sales process, along with the fact that they seem to be born to shortchange each other.

Seth turns the aliens into creatures out of a videogame and there is an undercurrent of Super Mario to the Goofies’ frenetic antics. There is the parallel path of the old Laurel and Hardy movies with the robbers diving in and out of cupboards, or vans sliding downhill as their handbrakes fail or ladders sliding and hitting windows as someone lets go of a heavy end.

Ultimately the different sets of characters collide taking the chaos to new heights, though it all flies over the heads of the Goofies who are set on the process of renovation. Perhaps a comment on the fact that today’s families are so self absorbed that most of what happens flies over them.

Certainly the author pushes all the right buttons in her slapstick world of mayhem – perhaps with an eye on an eventual action cartoon for children.